Section 3-4. Dying patients were resuscitated by chewing. Fletcherism.

Thanks to application of “Hazo” functions, a patient was resuscitated from the death. Do you know a word, “Fletcherism”? This word was extensively propagated in Japan previously, indicating that chewing activities were associated with unbelievable efficacy on our health.
Several dozens years ago, Mr. Fletcher at 40 years of age was living in the USA. He was suffering from obesity and poor health whereby his insurance was denied by a Health Insurance Company because of limited life expectancy. Accordingly, he could not help but try lots of things to improve his health but in vain. As the natural consequence, he decided to recover his health by “biting foods”; however, he could not move his body rather than physical exercises because of unusual obesity. He could do biting easily at any place. His central policy was not only to bite foods but “to ingest any foods following grinding foods to a pasty condition whenever he wanted to eat foods”. He achieved such a thorough “biting” for each meal every day. Surprisingly, his health was recovered and he looked younger. This is Fletcherism.
The reason why only biting practice made him so well and revitalized is attributed to “Hazo” of teeth as the ground. Biting foods induces stimulation of brain through cerebral limbic system, besides biological mechanism associated with stomach and digestive tracts being stimulated like salivary secretion. For example, satisfactory biting of foods makes stomach and intestinal tracts prepared for digestion and absorption of foods, followed by selective absorption of necessary ingredients and exclusion of unnecessary components. Such a mechanism of actions has been clarified recently. Iron-binding factor which is secreted from stomach is one of these compounds. When diabetic patients perform practice of good chewing, it is reported that fasting blood glucose levels are reduced and Hemoglobin A1c levels representing one of the index of diabetes mellitus are also lowered. It is anticipated that not only change of the above-stated digestion-absorption processes but also hormone secretion from salivary gland is involved in these phenomena.
From parotid gland as one of the salivary glands, parotin known as a hormone for rejuvenation is secreted. Animal experiments demonstrated that a certain hormone-like substance involved in glucose metabolism was secreted. Parotin which is secreted from parotid gland is synthesized in parallel with salivary secretion due to stimulation of parasympathetic nerve which occurs by chewing foods, followed by being incorporated into blood stream. Parasympathetic nerve stimulation plays a role providing comfort; therefore, with increase in happy emotion such as tasteful, enjoyable, pleasant and relieved, much stimulation occurs. Accordingly, during a dinner, we should not think about nuisance jobs and unpleasant events at all; in place of it, we must enjoy pleasant and joyful conversation.
The reason why Mr. Fletcher could recover his health and look younger might be attributable to his attitude such as “Whenever he wished to eat something, he took them without being concerned about unnecessary things and he enjoyed tastes of the foods”. If you want to regain power by taking foods, you are recommended to follow Mr. Fletcher’s manners for dinners. It cannot be recommended to try to ingest foods even if these foods contain nutrients. It is ideal to take foods which give you happy emotion. Taking into account the possible mechanism existing between chewing performances and health through Fletcherism, we come to note implication of various mechanisms therein. Fletcher’s enlightenment “God bless you after your enjoyable dinners.” seems to be the most trustworthy truth despite being unscientific. It might be difficult to perform Fletcherism completely but why do not you enjoy it within the feasible frameworks.
We can remember another sentence which referred to significance of chewing. You might have heard the name of Taisetsu Suzuki, a world-famous Zen Buddist, who published lots of books related to Zen Buddism in his whole life. I have been interested in Zen Buddism; therefore, I reviewed 32 volumes of his collected works. In one of these books, there is an episode in which one of his disciples asked Suzuki in such a way “You are an elderly buddist but enjoys good health. You lock yourself up in a study to write books. Do you have any special know-how?” Suzuki replied to his question as follows: I do not perform any physical practices but I pay attention to chewing of foods. I wonder whether Buddha’s voice can be heard if one obtain the Zen enlightenment. Frankly speaking, among the participants in the vivid elderly person study, there are some ones who had similar experiences as those of Fletcher and Daisetsu Suzuki.